Never Judge Someone Until You've Walked A Mile in Their Shoes I flip through my memories like stacks of paper left unorganized for years. I fade away into these memories while I try to sleep, as I drive or even standing in line at the grocery store. No matter how many times I sift through [...]
Leave it to me to be the dissenting voice. My mother wouldn’t at all be surprised. She might however be surprised to know that a few years ago I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. In fact most people in my life don’t know. Not because of stigma, not because of any sense of shame [...]
I suppose I have had anxiety my whole life. I was born into a strong Catholic family were everything was a sin. My older brother had epilepsy and so our family was always on edge, I guess I felt it was normal. It peaked at 13 when one night I was quietly watching tv like [...]
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) vs. Posttraumatic Growth (PTG): Focusing on Symptoms vs. Resiliency in Survivors of Trauma I’m no expert. I may be a counselor-in-training, completing my master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at CACREP-accredited Messiah College Graduate School, but I’m not the authority on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Posttraumatic Growth (PTG). Here’s [...]
Trigger Warning: Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse I still remember my first sexual encounter. I was 4 years old. I remember every detail, as if I was a spectator, rather than the child. I don’t remember the physical sensations, but I do remember every word spoken, every scene enacted. Since it’s with me more than [...]
Like many of you, I love chocolate, have a coffee addiction, and lie through my teeth when people ask me how I’m doing. Who wants to tell people, “I know I look fine, but this arthritis is really bugging me” or “my immune system is attacking my intestines and this leads to depression and an [...]
Living with Mental Illness: Better Doesn't Mean Cured Sometimes, I feel that I don’t know what’s going on or that I don’t care about anything. I am confused by my feelings, because I’m not able to explain how I feel, except for the emptiness, and I feel that no one is really there for [...]
I AM A STIGMA FIGHTER I should make clear from the very start that I am not a soldier. Nor, am I or ever was a trained first responder. Far from it, at the time of the tsunami, I had recently graduated university and had just left my home in London to start a new [...]
It's A Shame About Shame. Shame has a crushing feel to it. I think to those that have felt or continue to feel shame, it’s suddenly having a spot light aimed on you. It’s the turning of your stomach, like a cement truck, endlessly twisting what’s inside. Shame is that instant jerk of my head, [...]
This is hard for me write because I've never written about this before, nor have I talked about it to anyone other than my psychologist. Rachel Thompson has a saying she often posts on her social media streams, "Write what scares you." Or something to that effect, anyway. Writing about this doesn't scare me and [...]
